The USS Fitzgerald collided with a merchant vessel in June of this year killing seven members of her crew.  Unfortunately today the USS John S McCain has also collides with a merchant vessel; details unknown.
Update 10:00pm EDT: Unfortunately it appears there are numerous injuries and missing sailors:

“Ten sailors were missing after a Navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship east of the Singapore and Malacca Straits, authorities said Sunday.   Five sailors were injured in the collision between the USS John S. McCain and the merchant vessel, a 30,000-ton chemical and oil tanker, the Navy said in a statement.
A Navy spokesman told NBC News the incident was being treated as an accident. (link)

Original Press release from Pacific Command 7th Fleet Operations:

SOUTH CHINA SEA – The guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Alnic MC while underway east of Singapore and the Strait of Malacca on Aug. 21.

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Earlier in the day Defense Secretary James Mattis announced President Donald Trump has made a decision on the United States’ strategy for Afghanistan after a “sufficiently rigorous” review process.   The White House announced a few hours later that President Trump will deliver a prime-time address on the issue:

BRIDGEWATER, N.J./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will lay out his long-awaited U.S. strategy for the war in Afghanistan in a prime-time television address to the American people on Monday night, the White House said on Sunday, with a modest increase in U.S. troops possible.
A White House statement said Trump’s 9 p.m. (0100 GMT Tuesday) speech from Fort Myer, Virginia, near Washington, would “provide an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia.”  (read more)

Statement by The President –  I have directed that United States Cyber Command be elevated to the status of a Unified Combatant Command focused on cyberspace operations.
This new Unified Combatant Command will strengthen our cyberspace operations and create more opportunities to improve our Nation’s defense. The elevation of United States Cyber Command demonstrates our increased resolve against cyberspace threats and will help reassure our allies and partners and deter our adversaries.
United States Cyber Command’s elevation will also help streamline command and control of time-sensitive cyberspace operations by consolidating them under a single commander with authorities commensurate with the importance of such operations. Elevation will also ensure that critical cyberspace operations are adequately funded.
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis release a joint Statement/Op-ed discussing North Korea and accountability.  However, against the backdrop of visible diplomacy the joint statement is more about terms, than accountability.
Note a pointed subtlety.  Secretary Tillerson lays down the terms to China; while Secretary Mattis lays down the terms to North Korea.

WASHINGTON – The U.S., its allies and the world are united in our pursuit of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
In the past few months, multiple illegal North Korean ballistic-missile and ICBM tests—coupled with the most recent bellicose language from Pyongyang about striking the U.S., Guam, our allies and our interests in the Asia-Pacific region—have escalated tensions between North Korea and America to levels not experienced since the Korean War.
In response, the Trump administration, with the support of the international community, is applying diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime’s ballistic-missile programs. We are replacing the failed policy of “strategic patience,” which expedited the North Korean threat, with a new policy of strategic accountability.
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National Security Adviser HR McMaster appears on NBC ‘Meet the Press’ with Chuck Todd to discuss issues surrounding North Korea.   However, Todd predictably uses the first half of the interview to discuss the “Charlottesville Trump-is-racist narrative”, and then, rather sneakily, shifts the discussion into the “alt-right” -vs- McMaster angle.
Chuck Todd uses the “Bannon-wing talking points” and “allies within the White House” to draw out a division within the administration.  It’s obvious the MSM are ‘all-in’ on the strategy to highlight the division.  The second half of the interview finally focuses on North Korea.
At 08:06 the China as an economic enabler to DPRK comes in. Watch how HR McMaster responds on the economics of the North Korean issue.

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President Trump and Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announce the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act.
BEDMINSTER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed an emergency spending bill that will pump more than $2 billion into a program that allows veterans to receive private medical care at government expense.
Trump, who made improving veterans care a central campaign promise, signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act while at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday. The bill, which addresses a budget shortfall at the Department of Veteran Affairs that threatened medical care for thousands of veterans, provides $2.1 billion to continue funding the Veterans Choice Program, which allows veterans to seek private care.
Another $1.8 billion will go to core VA health programs, including 28 leases for new VA medical facilities. (read more)

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Really good stuff – President Trump called Guam’s governor Friday night to assure him the U.S. will protect its Pacific Island territory “1,000 percent” from North Korean aggression.
Guam’s governor, Eddie Baza Calvo, posted a video to Facebook in which he has a more-than-three-minute phone conversation with Trump, heard on speakerphone. WATCH:

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Speaking from Bedminster New Jersey, President Trump answers questions from media surrounding the ongoing issue with North Korea, and the intransigent republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his inability to move legislation.

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It’s always about the economic folks.  President Trump is the first U.S. president to fully appreciate, and utilize, economic leverage to achieve U.S. national security objectives.

…”If China helps us with North Korea I will feel a little differently about trade”…

~President Donald Trump

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Speaking today in Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany, Defense Secretary James Mattis gave a statement to the media before the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan at the George C. Marshall Center:

“The United States and our allies have the demonstrated capabilities and unquestionable commitment to defend ourselves from attack.

Kim Jong Un should take heed of the United Nations Security Council’s unified voice, and statements from governments the world over, who agree the DPRK poses a threat to global security and stability. The DPRK must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”

“President Trump was informed of the growing threat last December and on taking office his first orders to me emphasized the readiness of our ballistic missile defense and nuclear deterrent forces.

While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now posses the most precise, rehearsed, and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on earth. The DPRK regime’s actions will continue to be grossly over matched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates.”

~ U.S. Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis

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The useful pawns continue their efforts to take out President Trump’s National Security Adviser HR McMaster.  But what they don’t realize, and the professional liberal activists do, is that ultimately the only person they are going to remove is strategist Steve Bannon.
The same Battered Conservatives that stood for an ovation to House Speaker Paul Ryan (CPAC 2015) two months after passing Omnibus; the same Battered Conservatives who failed to see the inherent risk created by General Mike Flynn in November 2016; are now rushing to create a binary choice between Steve Bannon and HR McMaster in the White House.

Specifically because of their chosen approach the efforts against McMaster will lead to President Trump having to decide between two senior administration officials, Bannon or Mcmaster; and in deciding which to keep, Bannon will be the biggest loser.
Predictably the professional political left know how to game out this dynamic.  The professionally democrat are much better political strategists; and they are more than happy to play along, knowing exactly what to do. Meanwhile, in their efforts to take down McMaster the useful idiots and battered conservatives in right-wing media are walking obliviously into a familiar trap.
The person the professional-political-left really want to target is Steve Bannon.  Bannon represents everything the left-wing activists hate.  They’ve already tried a few different approaches to take him down and isolate him from the presidency, with no measurable success.
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